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Updated: May 5, 2025
It was not till after an hour's march, in which coaxing, scolding, and pushing, stimulants to laughter and provocatives to anger, had been incessantly employed in turn, that the vital powers appeared to be in tolerably full play. There was one man more obstinate than the rest, who, in order to get a place on one of the cacolets, threatened every minute to lie down on the ground.
Alongside them came another long column of ambulance-carts drawn by mules, beyond which, again, marched the auxiliary branch of the medical service, the camels, soft-footed and supercilious, with the white hoods of the cacolets swaying unevenly as they marched. Then came the light armoured-car batteries and in the centre the horse-artillery.
Nevertheless, he returns to their corps the least sick, he orders others to lie down completely dressed, knapsack in readiness. Francis and I are among these last. The day passes, the night passes. Nothing. But I have the colic continually and suffer. At last, at about nine o'clock in the morning, appears a long train of mules with "cacolets," and led by "tringlots."
He never would take advice, and it was nothing but "Tais-toi, Coralie," all day long but no one is perfect. He wished me to remain in the camp, but I made it a rule never to be left behind. We set off; and I rode in one of the little carriages called cacolets which had been provided for the wounded.
In the centre behind the fighting line were two guns of the Royal Artillery, the other having been left in the zareba, while the centre of the square was filled with camels carrying water, ammunition, and cacolets or swinging beds for the carriage of the wounded. The instant the square was formed and moved out the fire of the enemy redoubled.
We were a motley and grotesque-enough-looking caravan; for our six battalions of infantry and four squadrons of cavalry were accompanied by 3000 camels laden with provisions and attended by Arab drivers, besides 500 mules carrying water-barrels, and cacolets jointed arm-chairs for the sick.
Among them lay camels which had been hamstrung or speared by the natives, broken cacolets, and water tanks and skins, medical stores, and a confusion of articles of all kinds. Although forced back by the sheer weight of the native attack, the Heavies had never been completely broken up.
For the British infantry it meant, substantially, that behind each battalion a medical officer and two non-commissioned officers should march, accompanied by six camels bearing cacolets, and men with nine stretchers. A somewhat modified scheme was got out for the cavalry and artillery, as well as for the other Khedivial troops.
What sounds there were seemed to come from a great distance: the soft pad-pad of the camels, the creaking of the cacolets swaying high and low and the moans of the tortured men in them, the uneven beat of hoofs, and mingled with every sound was the monotonous crunching of waggon-wheels on the rough ground.
For an hour, which might have been a lifetime, the square toiled on, every now and again changing direction to gain more open ground; the stretchers and cacolets constantly receiving fresh burdens. A man, two files in front of our hero, went down with a bullet through the head, and those in rear stumbled over him. "Close up! close up, and keep that corner blocked in!"
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